Higher Education and Sustainable Development in the 21st Century: Implications on Youth Employability

Abstract

Employability is to have a set of knowledge, skills, personal attributes and understanding that make a person more likely to secure and choose occupations in which they can be successful and satisfied. This paper, thus, examined Higher Education and Sustainable Development in the 21st Century: Implications on Youth Employability. The study adopted the descriptive survey research. The population consists of all higher institutions and students in Oyo State. Three higher institutions were used for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 450 students from the three higher institutions. The instrument used for this study was questionnaire; data collection and collation were based on questions raised through Assessment of “Higher Education and Youth Employability Questionnaire” (HEYEQ) which was used to collect relevant information on the Higher Education and sustainable development implications on youth employability. The reliability of the instrument was ascertaining using Cronbach Alpha and Coefficient was found to be 0.75. Four research questions were raised for the study, simple percentage was used to answer the research questions. The findings revealed that university curriculum is not relevant to the world of work; students did not have confidence in university education and the link between university education and the world of work. Therefore, recommendations were made that university curriculum should be reviewed urgently and entrepreneurial education should be of more practical than theoretical.